Moscow/2

“Do svidania!“ The tall blonde unsmiling air hostess, who stood near the exit of the door, greeted each of us as we walked past her. I heard one of the older students translating to Ugo as they walked up behind me; “ What she said actually means; until we meet again. But that‘s the Russian way of wishing you goodbye“.

As I stepped outside on to the mobile stairway, I was hit by a cold stream of air , making it feel as if ice cold water had just splashed across my face. And I noticed how mist formed around peoples mouths and nostrils as they breathed and talked in the cold, giving an impression that we were all puffing away on invisible cigarettes. I zipped up my jacket and turned up its collar in order to make myself warmer, and started to walk a little faster. Ugo and the other guy, whose name I later found out was Sam, had continued with their conversation as they walked past me and were now walking briskly in front as we all headed towards the waiting airport shuttles.

I caught up with them and heard Sam saying that he came to the USSR 2 years earlier to study Aeronautics Engineering and had been fortunate to be posted to the Latvian city of Riga where there were about 8 other Nigerian Engineering students.
“Riga na betta place, but dem no dey post Medical students come there…” he said extolling the virtues of Riga, saying that it was a good place to be, but that Medical students were not sent there to study. “Generally for the Baltic states you no go feel like say na inside Soviet Union you dey as life there be like you dey for the Scandinavian countries…”. According to Sam, living in the Baltic states was like living in the Scandinavian countries and very different from life in other Soviet cities.

We got on to the first of the two shuttles and were taken to the airport terminal where, on entering the poorly lit receiving hall, we joined one of the two queues. Our queue was the one for foreigners while the other one was for the Soviet nationals. The two noisy queues were slowly snaking up to five glass screened cubicles that constituted the boarder controls. As the queues moved closer I saw that inside of the cubicles sat young looking immigration officials kitted up in what on first glance looked like military uniforms. They appeared to be very meticulous in their duties…or perhaps inexperienced…as they were spending a long time in scrutinising each of the passports that were being pushed through the little windows in the glass screen. After about two hours I was attended to by a stern looking male immigration official. He had looked at my passport with a lot of suspicion and each time he looked from the picture in my passport to me I had tried smiling, but he had completely ignored my smile and waved me through to the customs section. As I passed through the space in-between the two cubicles I was left with the impression that the man didn’t like his job very much and perhaps liked me even less…

Getting through the customs was a lot less of a hassle. From there I had picked up my luggage from the baggage controls and then made my way through to the big lounge area where some other Nigerian students had already started to congregate. In all there were 21 of us who arrived on that flight. And we were to meet with a Russian official who would then coordinate our movements. But nobody was waiting for us in the lounge area.

I looked around the cold poorly lit hall where we were waiting for our guide. The hall was crowded and there was no place to sit down other than the floor as the few seats had already been occupied by other passengers who had arrived a lot earlier than us. Some people sat on their baggage’s, while a rather noisy and chaotic crowd were trying to push through to the different check in counters at the far end of the hall. Every so often you would see passengers who had just come through from the receiving hall pushing their trolley's towards the exit , while those who were not fortunate enough to find trolleys would be seen struggling with various sizes of baggage’s. Watching them I was reminded of the image that had been in my mind before; there is a lot more colour in real life, I thought. And more noise…lots of noise…of people talking in loud voices and others who appeared to be exchanging a lot of expletives! Here people were a lot more animated and a lot more angry.

Outside I could see several cars parked in the drive way. I noticed that all of the cars had the same box-like look, resembling things that had been assembled in so a hurry that very little consideration had been given for comfort. Nearby men, wearing mostly black leather or stone washed jean jackets, looked like they were soliciting for passengers and seemed to be approaching almost everybody who came out of the hall pushing a baggage trolley.

I checked my watch and realised that it was already after midday. We arrived just over 3 hours ago and had been waiting for about 30minutes.
“I sure say una wait no go long pass our own when we arrive two years ago…” Sam, was saying interrupting my thoughts. He was trying to reassure us that our wait may not be as long as theirs had been 2 years earlier. “Dat time, we been stay for dis airport for over 4 hours because the person wey suppose pick us up been drink Vodka com forget the time when our plane suppose arrive!”. Apparently, the person who was supposed to have picked them up at the airport had gotten drunk and forgotten about their time of arrival and ended up coming 4 hours late!

Sam eventually left us after he had given his contact details to Ugo and invited us to drop in anytime we found ourselves in Riga.
“Na wa! dis people wan behave like some Nigerian civil servants. Wetin be to get drunk and forget work?!” one of the students, a rather rotund light skinned fellow with a goatee beard was saying. He was asking how somebody could get drunk while he had work to do and said that this was almost reminiscent of the attitude of some Nigerians working in the civil service.

“Which part of Nigeria be dat one?” A gangling dark youth challenged him, asking him to clarify what part of Nigeria he was talking about. His challenger, Musa, was wearing the kind of hat that was more common to people from Muslim North of Nigeria, “How many Nigerians you don see wey dey get drunk for work? Maybe na for your state dat wan dey happen!” . He said in an accent that suggested that he was of Hausa origins. He was asking the first speaker if he had ever seen any Nigerian getting drunk at work and stated that unless it was in the person’s own state that such things happened.
“Commot for here you village Hausa man…! The rotund guy responded. “…You tink say na nama we come pursue for dis place. When reasonable person dey talk, you wan put your mouth wey you dey take suck nama breast finish!” He asked him if he thought that they had come to Russia to become cattle rearers, making a clear reference to the other persons origins and their negative stereotyping as illiterate cattle rearers who are brought up sucking the breast of cows..
“Nyamiri! Na because of una foolishness and greed wey una lose the Biafra war!” the Hausa guy was now telling the rotund fellow, whom he assumed was Igbo that they had lost the Biafra war because of their greed and foolishness.
“Idiot, na because of your own stupidity wey you no fit see say I no be Igbo man!” the guy was saying he was not Igbo. ”I be Bini man!”

As I watched them I couldn't help feeling ashamed; apart from the fact that they were talking in loud voices that made passers by to throw glances in our direction, I couldn't help wondering why any arguments that involved Nigerians from different ethnic groups always seemed to turn into inter-tribal bickering. I was getting a bit sick of it and had not thought that we would bring our inter-tribal warfare with us to the USSR.
“I beg make una stop dis una stupidity! Una don carry this tribalism ting come all the way to Russia…!” Interposed one of the women who had arrived with us from Nigeria, speaking out loud what I had just been thinking. The speaker, Grace a rather heavy set woman who looked a lot more obese than plump, had kept to herself for most of the journey but must have now felt it her duty, as the oldest looking person in the group, to bring back a bit of sanity. ”Una tink say Oyibo go fit tell the difference between Igbo, Yoruba and Hausa?. Yeye people! Make I tell una, no be Naija we dey now and for here all of us na Africans and na so dem dey see us be dat…“ She said, stating that the white man is not able to tell the difference between the various Nigerian ethnic groups and that as far as they are concerned we are all Africans and that’s how they see us…